Richard Pipes

Richard Pipes is a right wing historian and politician who has been credited with "shaping the Reagan administration's aggressive approach to the Soviet Union"[1]. His son, Daniel Pipes, is the director of the Middle East Forum.

Because of his opposition to the Soviet Union, Richard Pipes was chosen to head Team B during the Ford administration in order to provide an alternative analysis of the existing National Intelligence Estimates.

Conservatives argued that the National Intelligence Estimates had underplayed the military threat posed by the Soviet Union. According to author Anne Cahn in her article, "Team B: The Trillion Dollar Experiment", "Team B reports became the intellectual foundation of 'the window of vulnerability' and of the massive arms buildup that began toward the end of the Carter administration and accelerated under President Reagan"[2].